Joey Payeur
Call them the “Four Musketeers.”
It was a one-for-all, all-for-one mentality that carried the Muskie boys’ curling rink to its second-straight gold medal at the NorWOSSA finals Feb. 8-9 at the Fort Frances Curling Club.
Skip Chris Silver, third Daniel Vandenbrand, second Jason Bazylewski, and lead Davis Jackson went 5-0 during the round-robin event to advance to the NWOSSAA championships Feb. 21-23 in Thunder Bay.
Finishing in first place there will mean the Muskies qualify for the OFSAA playdowns March 7-10 in North Bay.
“The main thing was that if someone went and had a bad shot, we were there to pick each other up,” noted Silver.
“If we had a bad end, we would bounce right back and get a real big score.
“In the tougher games, we made sure that the other teams got frustrated before we did,” he added.
“Patience was the key.”
Fort High won all of its games by at least three points, starting with a 9-1 pasting of the Kenora Broncos last Monday.
Then they downed the Red Lake Rams 6-2 and the Rainy River Owls 9-5.
On Tuesday, the Muskies routed the Atikokan Voyageurs 11-2 to clinch the title before closing out with a 5-2 victory over the Sioux Lookout Warriors.
“I think our experience helped a lot—outside of the high school games, I’ve played for 12 years myself,” noted Bazylewski.
“Our practice time together has been so important because it helped keeps us calmer than most other teams,” he reasoned.
Jackson said this is a more unified team than in years past.
“We’re all roughly the same age group, which means we can relate more to each other than me and Chris could as Grade 9s two years ago with two older boys,” he explained.
“We’re more friends than teammates and that makes a huge difference on the ice.”
Vandenbrand said the switch from playing mixed last season wasn’t that significant for he and Bazylewski.
“We worked as a team and came out as champions,” he remarked.
“We’re looking forward to [NWOSSAA],” chimed in Silver.
“We’re ready and we’ll do our best to represent our school and our region,” he pledged.
Joining them in Thunder Bay will be the Muskie girls’ rink of skip Erin Tomalty, third Tory Beaudry, second Anika Beaudry, and lead Andrea Schram.
But they won’t be going in as champs—having to settle for the silver medal after posting a 3-1-1 mark at the NorWOSSA playoffs here.
Sioux Lookout wrested the gold away from the defending champion Muskies by going 5-0.
Fort High trounced the Broncos 11-3 in its opener before crushing the St. Thomas Aquinas Saints (Kenora) by a 13-5 margin.
Tomalty then had a chance for the win with last rock against Sioux Lookout but came up just light on a draw to fall 9-8.
The Muskies released their frustration the next day by blanking Atikokan 11-0, but only managed a 6-6 tie with Rainy River in their last game.
Tomalty, in her debut as skip after playing second in recent seasons for Hailey Beaudry, remained upbeat afterwards despite settling for second place.
“It feels good, and we’ve come a long way and worked really hard,” she noted.
“We communicated a lot and it’s a great feeling to have this success without a lot of experience as a skip.”
Tory Beaudry admitted the communication factor can get better heading into NWOSSAA.
“We have to be clear with each other what’s going on,” she stressed.
“But that all comes with more experience of playing together.”
Anika Beaudry, who has played for two different skips in the high school ranks, gave Tomalty high marks for her performance as the anchor.
“She’s a really good skip,” Beaudry said.
“Erin already has experience skipping the Bantam team earlier this year, so it’s like she’s going into this with nothing for experience and she was really good in Bantams, too.”
Schram, who Tomalty affectionately called the team’s “positive girl” for keeping the rest of the squad in good spirits no matter the score, was glad to absorb all the lessons she could as the new member of the girls’ team this season.
“They taught me a lot,” she said. “Especially the fact that communication goes a long way in this game, and that it’s important that I stay focused and stay positive.”
Tomalty said her rink is more determined than ever going into the NWOSSAA finals, which likely will come with one final rematch against the Warriors for the lone OFSAA berth up for grabs.
“They’re always right there with us,” she noted.
“We’ve got to have the mindset we can do it.”
In the mixed division, it was a mixed bag for the Muskies, who wound up third after losing the silver medal tie-breaker 3-1 to the Saints in a game shortened to four ends due to time constraints.
The rink was skipped by Dawson Mihichuk, with Macarthur Wilde at second and Mackenzie Taylor at lead.
Maggie LeMesurier handled third duties early on, but then was sidelined by a migraine headache that forced fifth member Mathew Nowak into action for the final two games.
The Muskies lost their opening two games 5-2 to eventual champion Rainy River (3-1) and 7-3 to the Saints.
But they bounced back to top the Whitefish Bay Winterhawks 9-7 and edge Sioux Lookout 6-5 to force a three-way tie for second at 2-2 with St. Thomas Aquinas and Whitefish Bay.
Based on a pre-tournament draw to the button by all members of each team, Fort High earned a bye to the silver-medal game.
The Saints beat the Winterhawks 7-4 in the first tie-breaker, then scored singles in the first three ends against the Muskies.
Mihichuk and his team tried to come back in the fourth. But when his shooter hit and rolled out on his last stone, they only managed to score a single.
“I think we tried hard and did our best, but I don’t think we were on our best game,” conceded Nowak.
“I’m happy we scored at least one point against all the teams,” added LeMesurier.
“It didn’t matter if we lost by 12 to me as long as we got one.”
Taylor also professed to believing the team surpassed its own expectations.
“I didn’t think we’d do as good as third before the finals—I thought we might go 0-4,” she admitted.
“Things were pretty confusing for our team until Dawson took over as skip and got us going in the right direction,” she added.
There is no mixed division at the NWOSSAA level.
